Sunday, January 29, 2017

It was a great weekend, but not because I had anything special going on. It was a great weekend because I was home in the sunshine. My work took me to Logan, UT for the past week and it snowed. Every. Single. Day! Morning temps were around 6 degrees and the afternoons warmed up to a balmy 22. Yesterday, I had my sunroof open while doing weekend errands and chores. Thank you, San Diego!

After said errands and chores, I sat down at my crafting table and made this card using the current CAS(E) This Sketch layout. Love it this week!

The large floral background paper is gift wrap from a present that I received a few years ago. I love the colors so I folded it up and put it into my paper stash. The bottom paper is very old SU DSP.

The stamps are from Paper Smooches, Courteous Cuties and Courteous Cuties 2 sets. The speech bubble is Die-namics. For the inside I used more from the Courteous Cuties sets.

Finally, here are a couple of pictures from Logan, UT. The first is taken outside my hotel one of the mornings and the second was taken Friday on my way back to Salt Lake City to fly home. It was snowing when I woke up, but around 10 am it started to clear up. These mountains came into view about 2 miles out of town and were so pretty, I pulled over to the side of the road and took the picture with my phone.

We go from that, to this on Saturday. A picture through my car's sunroof as I was backing out of the garage.

That's all for now. I hope your work week is a good one. As always, thanks so much for stopping in.
Colleen

Sunday, January 22, 2017

I was gone all week working in the Los Angeles area and drove all the way to San Diego in a downpour on Friday afternoon. Man, I haven't had to drive in that kind of rain in a long time. At one point, it was raining horizontally instead of vertically because in addition to the rain, we had some very strong winds. We got a break on Saturday afternoon, but now the third storm, and the strongest, has moved in late Sunday afternoon. I think this storm is supposed to hang around until Tuesday. I won't be here as I leave early tomorrow morning back to Utah, where I suspect I'll be seeing snow rather than rain.

Chores took most of my weekend so I didn't sit down to do any stamping until about 3 pm today. Jaydee's the hostess at the Paper Players with a Clean and Simple challenge this week. Using the current Freshly Made Sketch, I put this card together pretty quickly.

Besides CAS, Jaydee's challenge is to use flowers on our cards. This was great for me because while hanging out in my hotel room in the evenings, I did some on-line shopping and my new haul from Waffle Flower was waiting for me when I got home. The sets included several that have flowers, so perfect for Jaydee's challenge and a great excuse to ink up my new toys.

The Waffle Flower sets have rather thick lines, perfect for stamping in black over colored paper. That's exactly what I did for the panel. I grabbed a piece of SU Watercolor Wonder DSP and stamped the image from the set "A Little Birdie Told Me." I cut it out with the largest Pierced Fishtail Flag die and trimmed it down to 4.25 inches. The panel is layered onto a piece of Basic Black card stock. I used a Stitched Cloud die from Lawn Fawn to cut the top. The card base is X-Press It Blending card stock. The Hey, Hi, Hello are from a different Waffle Flower set appropriately called "Hello." The black ink is Memento tuxedo black. The sweet little butterfly is stamped on a scrap piece of paper, colored with Copics, fussy cut and popped up with foam tape for a little dimension. I also colored over the butterfly's body and the round spots in the wings with a Spica Black glitter pen.

The inside uses more images from the "Hello" set.

I'm hoping this will be my last travel work week for a few months. I love to travel for vacation but not so much for work. Guess it's all the alone time in the hotels at night. Anyhoo, wishing you all a great week. Thanks for looking in today!

Monday, January 16, 2017

I'm driving this morning from San Diego to Semi Valley, CA, which is a little north of Los Angeles. It should be about a 3.5 hour drive, and I'm really hoping for no longer. As today is the MLK holiday for schools, state and federal workers, I expect traffic to be lighter than normal. Also, the rain we were expecting isn't coming until Tuesday, which will make for a better commute. Well, enough about driving because, after all, we're here for stamping.

Yesterday, I made this card using the new Paper Players color challenge from Sandy. Black, white and another color of our choice. Since many of us are in the mist of getting our Valentine's Day cards made, that is what I did. I've used a fairly traditional color, although not red. My inspiration for the background on my card comes from the most recent Paper Source circular. Here is the image that caught my eye.

Here is my card.

Yes, I did stamp everyone of these hearts one at a time, and I used my mini Misti tool to get them lined up. (it was fun!) The stamps are from an Ellen Hutson set called All Inside. It's the one with the cute bear that you can make hold things in his arms when you use the corresponding die. The hearts are all stamped with Memento tuxedo black. The outlined ones I colored with a couple of Copics to get the color that I wanted. (Trying to somewhat match Pink Pirouette.) The banner is Die-namics and the HUGS die and the & kisses stamp are Avery Elle. Other than the time it took to stamp the hearts, a very simple card.

Here is the inside, using Reverse Confetti Crushin' set stamps:

Ok, that's all from me. I'll be away from home all week, so unfortunately no more stamping time until the weekend. Have a great week!

Sunday, January 15, 2017

I'm writing my second post for today as I'm watching some tennis on the Tennis Channel. After baseball, it's my favorite sport to watch. It's getting pretty late, even here on the west coast, so I'm headed off to bed soon but thought I'd get this written up first.

I mentioned in my earlier post that I got some new Paper Smooches stamps. This card is made with one of the new sets and dies. I've used this week's CAS(E) this Sketch layout by N@ Ali. The inspiration for the colors and theme come from the new Inspired By All the Little Things inspiration photo. This week, Hannelie Bester is guest designing and she truly makes fabulous designs and cards.

The card base is SU heavy weight Whisper White card stock. I stamped the little bear onto X-Press It Blending card stock and colored him with Copics and cut him out with the die. The large red heart is an older SU die cut from Real Red card stock. I placed it on the card and then used my Misti to stamp the greeting because I wanted to stamp it two or three times to ensure that there wasn't halo at the edge of the heart due to the different levels. The tiny red hearts are part of the same stamp set and I randomly stamped them in Real Red and colored over them with a red Spica glitter pen. The bear is popped up with dimensionals and finally the sequin was added for the elements in the sketch. (Plus, I love sequin!)

The inside greeting is super simple and is from another new PS stamp set that coordinates with the first. The little red heart got the same glitter treatment as the ones on the front.

I'm off to work in Los Angeles this next week. Hopefully, traffic will be lighter than normal tomorrow since it's a holiday for many. Unfortunately, not for me. I hope you all have a great week.
Thanks for stopping in,
Colleen

Since work has me traveling Monday through Friday for the next several weeks, my stamping time comes only on weekends. Yesterday I made three cards and a couple more this morning. Because of said travel, I'll have blogger do some automatic posts for me this week.

But, I'm home today so I can get this post, and maybe even one more live today. This card was made using the current Freshly Made Sketch, where Kim has a fun tall panel in the layout. Oh the possibilities!

While working in Utah this past week, I received my recent order from Paper Smooches. One of the items I ordered is the Cozy Coffee die. So cute, and here it is.

The sentiment on the front is from Reverse Confetti. I did order the PS Winter Sampler set and used one of it's sentiments here on the inside.

And here's a picture of my crafty helper this weekend. This is Sadie who is visiting while her mom and dad are on vacation in Hawaii. She loves this stuffed chipmunk.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far and if you're in the path of the ice storms, that you're staying safe.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

I have one more post this afternoon to squeak in a card that I made using this week's Color Throwdown color palette. Amy is hostess this week with some bright colors. Since I'm headed into the snow tomorrow, I thought I'd channel some springtime.

I started with a Strawberry Slush card base that I stamped with the SU Hardwood stamp using the same color ink. The next stamped layer I made using the MFT Mini Hexagon Background stamp that I inked using a brayer and a SU Ombre Black ink pad. (Love the way it turned out!) The PI image is stamped with Memento black and colored with Copics using the challenge colors. The "hello" greeting is SU that I inked with VersaMark and clear embossed. I did two layers to make it look nice and shinny. A few enamel hearts and Wink of Stella over her green gardening boots are added for embellishments.

It's an exciting day because today the Paper Players challenge starts back up for the new year with three fabulous new Guest Designers. I almost didn't get to participate in their first challenge because I was scheduled to leave early this morning for a work trip to New Jersey, where I'd be all week long. But the project has been delayed, so the New Jersey trip was cancelled and I get to spend my Sunday at home. I am flying out to another state for work this week, but I don't have to leave until tomorrow morning. More about that later.

My friend LeAnne is hosting this week with a super fun theme challenge. The layout for my card comes from the current Freshly Made Sketches. The super talented Linda Callahan is the sketch designer this week.

LeAnne's challenge is to use a recycled item on our cards. The "patterned paper" on my card is actually part of the front of a birthday card that I received last summer. I loved the water colored look and the coper accents and decided to save the card. I remembered that I had it stashed somewhere when I saw LeAnne's challenge this morning. (It took me a while to find it, LOL.) I trimmed it down and layered it onto a Marina Mist card base. Using Marina Mist for the two vertical strips in Linda's sketch, I dry embossed them with embossing folders from SU, cross stitches, and TE, burlap. The flower is stamped with Tim Holtz distress blue ink onto water color paper and watercolored with more Distress Inks and an Aqua Painter. After stamping the sentiment, it was punched out using the old SU Word Window punch. I fussy cut the flower and adhered it and the sentiment to the vertical element using an "ancient" SU gold rhinestone brad. I added a few more gold and green rhinestones around the card for embellishments.

Here is the inside:

Using more stamps from the W Plus 9 set I stamped them on a piece of SU Naturals card stock in SU Archival Black ink and water colored them with Distress Inks. I didn't add an inside greeting, leaving room for writing a short note.

So, I volunteered to help out another region this week, not realizing what I was getting myself into. I'm heading to Logan, UT which is north of Salt Lake City close to the Idaho border. When I spoke with the customer that I'll be work with, he says "I hope you like snow!" Apparently, they have a ton of it. He sent me an e mail on Friday reminding to bring warm clothes as it was -26 degrees. Now, living in San Diego, you can imagine that I don't have many cold weather clothes. I did do some shopping for my December Europe trip and didn't get to use them, but it appears now I will. I even went shopping yesterday to get some snow boots. My big concern is driving from SLC up to Logan, about a 1.5 hour drive. Monday is supposed to be the only non-snowing day of the week, so hopefully all will be good getting there. Getting back to the airport on Friday may be a different story. Certainly, it will be an adventure!

Saturday, January 7, 2017

One more quick post today. Inspired By All the Little Things' inspiration photo is a beauty this week and I had an idea right away. Besides the flowers, I was also inspired by the gold of the bamboo pieces that the curtains are draped on. Although my flowers came out a little more red than purple, I still think it works with the inspiration photo. I'm also playing along with Seize the Birthday's Welcome Back challenge.

Using the Peony Bouquet set by Altenew, I stamped the layers of flowers using some SU and Hero Arts inks, as well as with VersaMark so I could use gold EP as "shading" on a few. After cutting out with the dies, I arranged them around a Die-namics Stitched circle frame die. The card front is dry embossed using the TE Burlap EF. The Happy Birthday sentiment is stamped with MFT Label Maker stamp set and Memento tuxedo black ink, then cut with their coordinating Die-namics dies. It was a fairly long process, but super fun to create.

I've been back to work for a week after having a whole month off and let me tell you, I absolutely did not want to go back. I actually really like my job, but I sure liked being off. This was the longest time that I've ever taken off in all my years of working, and I'm right at retirement age, so it's many. Man, it was wonderful! I was supposed to go on a trip to Europe in early December, but we didn't go due to my friend getting sick. I ended up doing a "stay-cation" and still had a great time. The first couple of weeks I made a baby quilt for our neighbors, which you can see on a recent post here..

I didn't do a whole lot of stamping, but I'm making up for it today. I managed to get three cards made for some of my favorite challenges that have started back up this week after taking a holiday break.

Here's a card using the new CAS(E) This Sketch layout. Time to get started on Valentine's Day cards.

The stamp set is a Christmas themed set by Lawn Fawn, but it works well doing double duty for Valentine's Day. The papers are from SU.

I hope you're having a good weekend so far. Thanks for stopping in today,
Colleen